Juan Ponce de León

Juan Ponce de Leon was born in 1474 in Spain.

Leon arrived in the Caribbean in 1493. He anchored on the modern day island of Puerto Rico.

In 1502, he was appointed the governor of Hispaniola. And by 1511, word had gotten to King Ferdinand II that there were undiscovered islands northwest of Hispaniola. Leon with 200 men left Puerto Rico on March 4, 1513 in search of these new lands. After a while, hey discovered one of the northern islands in the present-day Bahamas. A few days after they left the island, another piece of land was found, which was thought to be an island. (Unbeknownst to him, this was actually present-day Florida.) He landed near present-day Melbourne Beach, Florida, and then made his way back to present-day Cuba.

He died in July of 1521 in Havana, Cuba.